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@docrussjackson
Feb 2, 2022 • 18 tweets • 7 min read • Read on X
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#Thread

The long-awaited "levelling up" strategy is a joke: the Government are openly taking the piss out of the "red wall" voters they conned into voting for them in 2019: it contains fuck-all new money, is driven largely by meaningless targets, & aims for a 2030 completion!
It's like it was written on the back of a fag packet during a lockdown party. At the heart of the strategy is a plan to create more regional mayors which nobody wants!

We want decent jobs, affordable homes & functional public services - which have all but disappeared since 2008!
The largely meaningless targets hope to "level up" some areas by 2030! What a joke. What an insult. By November last year, the Govt had committed just £11billion through policies to support the regeneration of towns & communities across the UK for the period from 2020/1 - 2025-6.
Where 'levelling up' has worked IN REALITY rather than in fantasy eg in post-unification Germany, there have been MASSIVE fiscal transfers from rich regions to poor ones - approaching £1.5 TRILLION, or £70BILLION *PER YEAR*!

The Tories are offering peanuts, targets, & bullshit.
The Tories have "spaffed up the wall' almost as much on unusable & overpriced PPE - £10 BILLION - as they've allocated for levelling up!

£10 BILLION has now been written off by the useless Tory government, & auditors have rebuked the Dept of Health for pissing away voters' cash!
I think most people now understand that millions of voters have suffered decades of rising inequality & rising cost of living, decades of declining pay & working conditions, declining public services, a decline in decent affordable housing, & a serious decline in quality of life.
And I think most people now understand why after decades of the ALREADY rich getting MUCH richer, & after being ignored & treated with near contempt by successive Governments, millions of decent people wanted to give an arrogant, out of touch & cruel establishment a bloody nose.
I also think that almost everyone now realises that despite his unpopularity with many voters, & despite his many faults, a Corbyn-led Govt would NOT have ignored rising poverty & inequality, would NOT have stoked a divisive culture war, & would NOT have let 180,000 people die.
Levelling up is a con. The transfer of wealth is not from rich individuals or regions to poorer ones, but from poor to rich.

We've lived through the biggest scams in British history: first the bank bailouts, then the Brexit lies, & now COVID opportunism.

While the Tories have cut the spending power of councils in Britain's most deprived areas by 40% since 2010, I'm afraid this utter mess has been forty long years in the making.

👏Every.👏Single.👏Time.👏
"Everyone, including the Secretary of State (Mr Gove) thinks it's shit."
Some of the wealthiest parts of England, including areas represented by government ministers, have so far been allocated 10 TIMES MORE MONEY per capita than the poorest under Boris Johnson’s “levelling up” agenda.

theguardian.com/inequality/202…
No fewer than eight of the “12 missions” at the heart of the government’s misleading & purely rhetorical "levelling up" strategy have been rehashed from a 2017 Industrial Strategy introduced by Theresa May, which was shelved by Boris Johnson.

independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi…
Leopards rarely change their spots #1.
Leopards rarely change their spots #2.
The National Audit Office says just 8% of the Govt’s major projects are properly evaluated, & 64% are not evaluated at all!

The Levelling up Dept 'has wasted opportunities’ to learn where spending could have biggest impact - £BILLIONS could be wasted.

civilserviceworld.com/professions/ar…
The NAO head Gareth Davies warned in a piece for The Times earlier this month that the government is “not learning from its successes or failures” because departments DO NOT FACE SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES for failing to evaluate their own work.

Sounds familiar...🤔

#SueGrayReport

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More from @docrussjackson

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Nov 23
#THREAD

There was outrage when in 2020, the Tory Govt conceded a new bill to amend the UK's Brexit deal would "break international law" in a "specific & limited way".

But what is international law? What is the ICC?

And what were Margaret Thatcher's views on international law? Image
Image
First, what is 'international law'?

Broadly (it's complicated!) it refers to the body of legal rules, norms, and standards that apply between sovereign states and other entities that are legally recognized as international actors.
The term was coined by the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832). According to Bentham’s classic definition, international law is a collection of rules governing relations between states. This original definition omits individuals and international organizations.
Read 57 tweets
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Nov 21
#THREAD

"Improving the quality of life for people of this country is perhaps the most important duty of Government."

John Prescott has died.

In September 2000, John - then Deputy Prime Minister - gave a speech at the @UKLabour Party Conference, introducing Nelson Mandela. Image
Nelson Mandela died in December 2013. Writing a tribute in the Daily Mirror, John reflected on his death, writing: “In my office at home I have a picture that is my most treasured possession. It’s of me shaking Nelson Mandela’s hand on stage at the @UKLabour conference in 2000." Image
At the Rivonia Trial, between 1963 & 1964, Mandela gave a dramatic speech from the dock.

John wrote in 2013 “When I read that, I knew that I wanted to enter politics. He was my ­inspiration. So when he walked free in 1990, we felt as if one of our own comrades had been freed.” Image
Read 28 tweets
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Nov 16
🧵
Allison Pearson posted then deleted disinformation, falsely accused three people of being "Jew haters", lied about where the photo was taken & what they were doing, then lied about what the Police said to her - and then moaned about being a victim! FFS

bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…
The Telegraph's divisive shit-stirrer Pearson falsely claimed she was told by the police who came to her home it was over a “non-crime hate incident”. Her lie was then dutifully amplified by every Reform UK MP & billionaire-owned right-wing "news" media, painting her as a victim.
Essex Police said “At no stage... was she informed that the report being investigated was being treated as a non-crime hate incident. To suggest otherwise is wholly inaccurate and misleading.”
Read 17 tweets
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Nov 15
#THREAD

Pearson, Farage, Musk, Young, Habib, & many other shit-stirrers who shamelessly try to normalize hateful, divisive, provocative & inflammatory rhetoric, often refer to George Orwell's 1984, but Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is much closer to the dystopia we inhabit... Image
Harassment, malicious communications, incitement, & threatening violence are all crimes in the UK, & have been for a long time.

Print & broadcast media, & online social media are simply platforms on which we behave or misbehave: it's not about the medium, it's about the offence. Image
The UK is signed up to Article 10 of the #ECHR: everyone has the right to free speech, which may only be qualified in limited circumstances, including: national security; public safety; the protection of morals & of the reputation or rights of others.

herbertsmithfreehills.com/notes/publicla…Image
Read 30 tweets
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Nov 15
#THREAD

"Enoch Powell was a hero of the young Nigel, but at this point he could do without any association with the politician who made the notorious Rivers of Blood speech... the accusation of racism follows Farage & his party around like a bad smell." - Allison Pearson Image
"Farage has tried for years to shrug off the charge that his parties are more than “the BNP in blazers”... although I don’t think Farage is a racist, it’s a problem that racists attach themselves to Reform." - Allison Pearson Image
“We’re investigating a report which was passed to us by another force. The report relates to a social media post which was subsequently removed. An investigation is now being carried out under section 17 of the Public Order Act.” - Essex police spokesman Image
Read 5 tweets
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Nov 9
🧵

Every episode of #bbcqt Image
Image
Not a lot of people know that Oxbridge alumni Fiona Bruce, presenter of 'Fake or (paid a) Fortune?', and since January 2019, the @BBC's interrupting Chair of #bbcqt, was born in Singapore.

One of her first episodes as Chair was the one that made Laurence Fox a household name. Image
In my widely read & reported February 2023 Open Letter to the @BBC about @bbcquestiontime, one of my concerns was about Bruce’s chairing of #bbcqt which I said was "at best, unacceptably poor."

I haven't seen anything to change my mind since.

yorkshirebylines.co.uk/politics/an-op…Image
Read 12 tweets

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